


Doorstep

by xoxoHuntersofArtemis



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Conversations, F/F, Femslash, Lesbian Character, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoxoHuntersofArtemis/pseuds/xoxoHuntersofArtemis
Summary: Your basic Reyna in denial about her feelings and some deep conversation between her and Thalia





	Doorstep

(all of these characters belong to Rick Riordan)

Thalia and Reyna sat side by side on Reyna’s doorstep, soaking in the heat from the stone still warm from the setting sun. After a day of leading battle drills, which, in the middle of July, with a recalcitrant group of Romans, was draining as Hades, neither of them felt much like talking. Thalia stared into the distance, apparently lost in thought and as still as a statue. Reyna, however, couldn’t sit still for more than a few seconds. Something mysterious and uncomfortable tugged at her whenever she was alone with her thoughts, and she kept her hands busy brushing dust off her boots, pulling up the tiny weeds that grew around her doorstep, braiding and unbraiding little sections of her hair.

Reyna’s eternal to do list circled through her mind, worn out agenda items whirling around like a carousel. Learning Greek for diplomatic purposes, her ever-growing mountain of paperwork, washing her hair, cleaning her house, doing laundry, meeting with the new probationes, and ten other things that no agenda notebook could tame. She looked sideways at Thalia’s serene profile, wondering if it was her experience with immortality that made the huntress so calm, or some innate quiet. She had heard the story of Thalia’s time as a pine tree, but the other girl didn’t like to talk about it. Reyna’s eyes lingered on Thalia’s hairline, the careful gelling starting to fuzz into a black halo after a day outside in the California heat. 

Thalia’s head moved and Reyna whipped her head in the opposite direction, staring towards the forum with great concentration and hoping the swish of her clothing hadn’t been too loud. She stifled a smile as she realized how afraid she was of being caught staring at Thalia, even though her interest in the daughter of Zeus was basically just intellectual. 

“Reyna,” Thalia said, “have you ever been in love?” 

“I--I have definitely had crushes,” Reyna answered cautiously, stealing another glance at Thalia, who was staring out to sea again. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been in love in the strictest sense of the word like unable to think of anything or anyone else, not eating or sleeping, imagining myself getting married to the person, or wanting to date them enough to risk asking them out.” Reyna noticed an extra flicker of interest in Thalia’s eyes as she described her notion of love, and she wondered if it had to do the the gender neutral pronouns she had used. They locked eyes and quickly looked away again. 

“Same here, mostly,” Thalia said. “Some crushes here and there, but nobody I was crazy enough about that I had love-induced insomnia thinking about them, or anyone I was brave enough to ask out, come to that.”

“I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I’d asked out some of those people--” Reyna’s heart had skipped a beat on “them” and another on “anyone”.

“Me too,” Thalia said. “Annabeth might have joined the Hunters if it hadn’t been for Percy, and they weren’t even together then. I had no specific reason to stay in the mortal world.” 

“But you came back,” Reyna said casually, not wanting to ask outright why Thalia had hung up her bow. 

“Since you asked…” Thalia started slowly, turning to grin at Reyna. 

“I didn’t mean to dig into it--no pressure--” 

Thalia smiled at her and said “I know you didn’t. But I want to talk about it. And you’re the perfect person to talk to about it, and--anyway, I left the Hunt because I felt like I was going to maybe get better at archery and hunting and leadership but I wouldn’t grow in a lot of the ways that you can if you’re not constantly running around killing monsters with a bunch of immortal teenagers. It wasn’t that I felt like I was missing out on male company--just varied company. The Hunters all tend to become like each other and it made me sort of cranky. 

And the world was kind of passing me by too and that scared me--I wasn’t getting older and I knew this girl once--she’d kill you as soon as look at you and she was so beautiful--but anyway she wasn’t at home in this modern world and I kind of don’t want to slowly watch all my friends die and not even be able to really be there for them through all the important life marker stuff. 

And I wanted a home. I absolutely needed time to think and stop and be with people who loved me and all that kind of thing and to be with girls and have someone else make decisions for me and the hunt gave me that, but I need to settle down. I want a bed to sleep in and a kitchen to cook in. I’ve been on the run in one way or another for ten years, Reyna. It’s exhausting never knowing when you wake up where you’ll go to sleep.” 

“You can stay here as long as you want,” Reyna said, not knowing what else to say to this sudden outpouring of information about Thalia that made her wonder what else was lying hidden under that tough exterior. 

“Thanks. Thanks for listening. And thank you for not pointing out that I wasn’t on the run when I was a tree.” Thalia turned her head and fixed Reyna with those distracting eyes, smiling in an almost conspiratorial way.

“Hey, it’s the least I can do,” said Reyna with an aggressive cheerfulness that seemed to belong to their formal interactions from Thalia’s first weeks in New Rome. 

Silence fell between them again, a comfortable one laced with a mutual understanding. Reyna noticed that her own hands were finally still. Thalia was still looking out at the forum, this time with a slight smile on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N I edited this story from its original posting so that Thalia left the hunters so she wouldn't miss out on aging along with her mortal friends and family to reflect my new understanding of the hunters as they are in Rick's canon vs. how I think they should be in any ethical modern retelling of stories about Artemis and her hunters. I believe that being part of the Hunters should NOT preclude romantic and/or sexual relationships with other women. My Thalia will now leave the hunters based on her concerns about immortality, not romance. 
> 
> I want to thank all of the people on tumblr who are doing the work to educate people about this issue, and I apologize for my original, ignorant, potentially really harmful, careless A/N, which I'm leaving here for the sake of accountability:
> 
> "I also want to note that I don't subscribe to the idea that Artemis wouldn't mind if her hunters had girlfriends, because "I forswear romantic love forever" seems pretty unequivocal to me, and the idea that wlw relationships would be excluded from that seems in keeping with the poisonous idea that relationships or romantic interactions between women don't "count" that is so pervasive among heterosexual men. Theyna is, however, the most important ship in the Riordanverse to me, and I imagine Thalia leaving the Hunters to be with Reyna." (((I don't believe this anymore)))
> 
> My original understanding of the hunters was based on a misremembering of the actual oath the hunters take, which is given word for word in TC (page 42) and has nothing about forswearing romantic love forever. I should absolutely have checked the text before posting this, especially because of what's at stake here for lesbians and bi women. I think that after calling out Rick for his homophobia and biphobia the best defense against the problems of the text is to talk to each other and write and draw stories that reflect our own conception of Artemis and the Hunters.
> 
> Sorry about the length of this note. This is a vitally important issue and I wanted to be as clear as possible about where I stand on it.


End file.
